Hard water cloudiness.

[Jose]

I understand Darrel. My main interest is in keeping long term(not breeding) South American fish like cardinal tetras, tetras in general and discus. Its known and has been said a million times that they can be kept in harder water without problems. But, would they be happpier in a mediumly hard water with ph artificially lowered compared to the same water with no acid added?. I think they would, just because adding an acid ups the conductivity a bit but not that much but also adds all the benefits of an acidic water for them.

I do know neon tetras are said to be sensible to Ca++ ions in the long run but if you have a certain tap water you cant do much about this except use ro or rain water.

In line with your coffee comparison, maybe some fish prefer a sweeter macchiato than others cause they come from sweet milk waters. They dont like the coffee but they like the sugar.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

But, would they be happpier in a mediumly hard water with ph artificially lowered compared to the same water with no acid added?. I think they would, just because adding an acid ups the conductivity a bit but not that much but also adds all the benefits of an acidic water for them.

That is the real question, and I don't know the answer.

I think probably that acid treated water would be better than the alkaline tap water, but not as good as low conductivity soft water, but that is just a hunch. I've never kept soft water fish in hard salty water, but others have successfully <"What's the importance of KH.....">.

On <"Apistogramma forums -OK"> there was a very interesting post by Ted Judy (in a thread on conductivity), which covers much of this topic area.

cheers Darrel

 

[Jose]

Thanks! Ive now got some reading to do then.

 

[Jose]

Seems like a guy in the Apisto forum has seen the same kind of results: Carbonates is the most critical part in breeding.

Also when I used to breed tiger barbs I noticed the same thing. I would get the highest hatch rate diluting half a part of tap water in half a part of bottled very soft water. The trick was to lower ph to 5 or 5.5. If the ph was higher than 5.8, then no survivors.I also bred neon tetras but these do need very low conductivity as well. I had very low succes due to my feeding with egg yolk.

 

[Jose]

I might run an experiment. Ill try adding acid to my liquid rock water to a ph lower than 7 and do water changes only with this water. Ill only have moskito rasboras though.
In theory most fish can live with this Ca and Mg concentrations in the water. All Ill be doing is getting rid of most of the kh.

Does anybody know where I can buy HCL(Hydrochloric acid) in UK?

 

[ian_m]

Does anybody know where I can buy HCL(Hydrochloric acid) in UK?

Ebay.

Would have thought sulphuric or nitric acid would be better to end up with sulphates or nitrates in the water rather than chlorides. The nitrates would be taken away by the plants, sulphates will probable precipitate out, but chlorides would remain in solution until removed by water changes.

 

[Mr. Teapot]

Could Jose try something less dangerous like citric acid first?

 

[Jose]

MMM you might be right ian_m, but remember many people dose CaCl2 without problems. I used to dose HCL and no problem but i did read somewhere to oxygenate my water first since Cl- might consume quite a bit of oxygen. Dont really know the reactions taking place so I will listen too you.

By the way I know it sounds dangerous cause they are strong acids, but its all about dissolution. You are just adding sulfates which is in our fertilizers and H+ ions (protons?) if we were to add H2SO4 (sulphuric acid)

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Would have thought sulphuric or nitric acid would be better to end up with sulphates or nitrates in the water rather than chlorides.

We used to inject nitric acid into the well water on the nursery, it stopped the drip lines and spray heads from scaling up, and fed the plants.

HCl is fine, because it is a strong acid you don't add many Cl- ions. It is the "muriatic acid" recommended in the older fish keeping literature. Phosphoric acid based buffers are usually used for aquariums, partially because they will maintain water at ~pH6.5.

The real problem is the one that "Mr Teapot" identifies, weak acids, like citric, are a lot safer for you and the fish.

With all acids you will have problems with the pH climbing back up, it is because all the H+ ions are in solution and you don't have any reserve of acidity (it is just like buffering in alkaline systems, when you add NaOH you don't have any buffering, when you a carbonate you do).

You can create buffers that are stable at nearly all pH levels, but I wouldn't recommend it as an approach.

cheers Darrel

 

[Jose]

Ive tryed weak acids and there is no way of lowering the ph for a prolonged period of time for me. With strong acids Ive only had pH climbing back up when I had carbonates in the filter for example. So you add acid to the water but carbonates are not only there. But once you burn out most of the carbonates in the filter the ph stays amazingly constant and going down very little due to nitrification. These are just my observations and are no scientific data of course.

 

[Mr. Teapot]

I'm all for the mad laboratory approach (apologies to the scientists😀) but wouldn't it be simpler to buy a dirt cheap RO unit for £50 or collect free rainwater?

 

[Jose]

Mmmm I live in a shared house so.....dont know about the the rainwater but no ro system.

 

[sciencefiction]

I do honestly think fish are better at lower ph. And I think many substrate producers know this like ADA.

It depends. I have hard water here, but not as hard as yours. My fish, some coming from soft water originally, have been doing well in hard water including corys that are already 6 years old and looking as brand new, and clown loaches( but I know they are very adaptable) In my opinion, and from what I've seen, soft water is good as long as it's stable. I've come across more problems with soft water than with hard. Fish tend to like stability rather than specific numbers.

Depends upon whether you are interested in maintenance or breeding. It is high dGH/dKH that stops the eggs hatching.

You know, only from observation, but my two otocinclus spawned in a tank with low Kh and Gh, and TDS, no eggs hatched whatsoever but I moved one stalk of plant to a hard water tank without realising it may have an egg attached, and I ended up with a baby otto. Maybe it's for different reasons but it still counts.
With my corydoras, I thought it was the hard water at first but sometimes I had batches when 100% of them hatched and sometimes batches when just a few hatched. But I know corys are a lot easier to breed, hatch eggs, etc.. so I am not sure why the inconsistencies.

 

[Vito]

So Jose what's your solution to this problem as I also used to get a cloudy build as I had my tank running over a year and then realised the glass is completely covered in hard water stains which I can't seem to scrape off, I'm goin to have to investigate into some heave duty hard water stain removers and possibly an RO unit so the build up doesn't happen again.

 

[ajm83]

I had my tank running over a year and then realised the glass is completely covered in hard water stains which I can't seem to scrape off, I'm goin to have to investigate into some heave duty hard water stain removers and possibly an RO unit so the build up doesn't happen again.

Please post if you have success in this!
I tore mine down last year and tried cillit bang limescale remover, vinegar, shower scale remover. None had any improvement on the damage. It's like the glass has been etched. 🙁

 

[Jose]

The only solution for this is to use water with less salts in it. Why? because adding an acid is just going to precipitate the carbonates which with time should end up in the walls just like you are all reporting (Please correct me someone if Im wrong here). So here in UK if I had my own home I would definately buy an RO unit or since there is always rain, get one of those rain tanks people have.

By the way I know many people have had succes with fish in harder water, but no body talks about their losses and Im sure there are a few, although you cant proof if its due to the hard water can you.

Sometimes people buy 20 cardinal tetras, put them in hard water, after a year half of them have died but after the initial adaptation process maybe they are well. But for having 10 cardinals in hard water you have paid a price (just my point of view) and yes they can be kept but is it worth it? Maybe some dont have losses so please do tell your story!

Cheers

 

[Jose]

We used to inject nitric acid into the well water on the nursery, it stopped the drip lines and spray heads from scaling up, and fed the plants.

Would this prevent the scale on the walls of the aquarium Darrel? I am unsure.

 

[ian_m]

I have rock hard water and generally don't suffer losses when I get fish, though do occasionally get a few deaths couple of days/weeks after purchase, maybe, sometimes, not enough to worry about. Most fish, since moving high tech seem to last years, a lot longer than when I ran low tech, but I suspect due to frequent water changes and better filtration.

Most of the fish shops round here use 50% RO (or less) as it is easier to control water parameters and prevents scale build up on their equipment. Also use monster UV units (couple of KW) as obviously don't want infected fish infecting all their stock.

Can you buy RO water locally, round here is about £10 for 25litres.

I think you will find the impossible to remove scale is calcium sulphate (my Dad once scraped a sample from our shower and got in analysed in his work lab) and won't be shifted by most scale removers. I now have a whole house water softener so scale no longer appears, but water is not suitable for an aquarium. Since getting the softener most scale, calcium carbonate type, has dissolved away but a lot remained on shower screen glass. I tried loads of things to remove this scale (brick acid, Killrock etc etc), best eventually was Killrock Gel, left on for a while that finally got the glass clean.

You tank must be different somehow as, yes I get scale at water line, see below, note filter cover on right, but certainly nothing on the glass or plants or hardscape.

 

[Jose]

I suppose I used to get it everywhere because I had a coarse filter sponge which didnt eventually filter the particles. I am using a much better filter this time and I didnt give the dust time to settle on this one since I added acid and everything cleared up nicely.

 

[Jose]

I have rock hard water and generally don't suffer losses when I get fish, though do occasionally get a few deaths couple of days/weeks after purchase, maybe, sometimes, not enough to worry about. Most fish, since moving high tech seem to last years, a lot longer than when I ran low tech, but I suspect due to frequent water changes and better filtration.

I suspect we are doing a non natural selection here and will end up with fish that dont mind hard water at all in the long run.